[P2P-F] Product Maximizing Corporations (was: "corporateperson")

Sat Nov 26 11:46:12 CET 2011

i agree

On 26/11/11 04:15, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp <mp at aktivix.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>> martin,
>>>
>>> would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an
>>> accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables
>> you
>>> to continue to operate  in a money system) and a system    based on
>> profit
>>> maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism
>>> ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi,
>>> braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david
>> graeber
>>> ...
>>
>> Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
> 
> 
> 
> No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market
> systems vs capitalist market systems
> 
> 
> 
>> So,
>> when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak
>> of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the
>> latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
>>
>> While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is
>> very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators,
>> notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the
>> problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which
>> it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in
>> the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence
>> of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations
>> (all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of
>> profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the
>> product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and
>> the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
>>
>> There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion
>> that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False
>> exercise of the mind.
>>
> 
> No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on
> this.
> 
>>
>>
>>> pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and
>> social
>>> goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty
>> much
>>> fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
>>
>> I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great
>> overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't
>> think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs.
>> them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity
>> between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed
>> Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and
>> Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and
>> whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
>>
>> Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the
>> history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I
>> am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear
>> universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
>>
> 
> 
> So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu
> society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a
> commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this
> for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the
> argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and
> focusing on their wrong epistemology.
> 
>>
>>
>>> it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of
>> capitalism,
>>> but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially
>>> when the market dynamics are subsumed?
>>
>> They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do
>> business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a
>> particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism
>> is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
>>
> 
> could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons
> leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
> 
> 
>>
>>
>>> perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and
>>> concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal
>>> systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
>>
>> .. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
>>
> 
> 
> I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to
> accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land
> accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a
> counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted
> to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather
> than permanent warfare (see the book,  The first european revolution)
> 
>>
>>
>>> to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where
>> some
>>> players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already
>> obtain
>>> more resources in the second round
>>
>> Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
>>
>>
>>> without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
>>
>> depending on what "win" means, yes.
>>
> 
> 
> Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a
> particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is
> accumulated
> 
>>
>>
>>> my understanding is that tribal societies had such active
>> countermeasures?
>>
>> what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more
>> importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very
>> difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it
>> different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where -
>> crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within
>> system X?
>>
> 
> it is really difficult to even use language without using any
> generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of
> generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why
> a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect
> that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our
> societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that
> makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own
> thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back
> to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone
> relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that
> 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the
> epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to
> avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the
> state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the
> proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
> 
> 
>>
>> martin
>>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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